Interact, Service Above Self
By Aliina Forester || LHS Student
In the 5/1 Ledger
Lowell High School provides lots of great clubs, but one in particular does things for the community out of the kindness of their hearts. Interact is one of the many clubs in Lowell High School; it focuses on volunteering and doing good for our community. Interact goes hand-in-hand with our town’s Rotary Club. Both help to better the community and don’t look for a “thank you”. While Rotary can help our town on a bigger scale, like supporting education, protecting the environment, and growing our local economy, Interact helps our town from a smaller scale, working in the school system. Interact helps with the Food Fight, Turkey Trot and other local activities, and raises awareness for Polio.
Not many people know about this club because they do behind the scenes work without seeking a benefit for themselves. This group meets every other Thursday to discuss new upcoming events they can volunteer for. While sometimes it’s hard to find volunteer opportunities, this group’s board members do a great job of keeping everyone informed and always have a plan of what they are doing next.
Ben Vonderheide, the President of Interact, told us, “My favorite thing about Interact is the motto, ‘Service Above Self”. There’s no required criteria for any prospective members, and there aren’t any compulsory events or service hours, so everything you do in Interact is completely from the good of your own heart. The challenging thing is finding members who are willing to join us, as Interact isn’t one of those clubs that really “pops” when it comes to college applications or resumes. It’s a pretty niche group, but I think lots of people would really like it if they learned about it more or tried it out for themselves. Our goal is to publicize our club more and educate people on what exactly we do in order to recruit those kinds of people.”
Interact is also invited by Rotary to go to their meetings every Wednesday, while sometimes it is a struggle because students have to leave school to attend the meetings, most of them find time and always make-up their school work. When these members attend Rotary meetings, it shows them new ideas that they could try to do on a smaller scale. These meetings consist of eating some nice homecooked meals and sitting down all together, getting to know one another, then listening to a presentation, or someone letting everyone know what volunteer opportunities there are; these meetings are just big scale versions of the ones Interact has at Lowell High School, every other Thursday morning. Interact, just like Rotary, wants to better their community and make a difference.
All of the students in Interact want to help anyone and everyone they can; Alex Roys, Public Relations Officer, says that she loves the kinship in the club, “I love how tightly knit our group is, everyone is friends with each other and it makes me want to volunteer. I love what our group stands for, and then, even though we work closely with our student leadership groups, we have a sense of uniqueness within that trio.” The “trio” she is referring to is Student Council, National Honors Society, and Interact. Whenever one group finds a volunteer opportunity, they open it up to all groups, but what sets Interact apart from the others is that they constantly have volunteer opportunities and the members of this group are at the majority of them.
These acts of service aren’t forced upon any of the members, they do it because it fills their heart. Brant Tiede, Treasurer, said, “I just enjoy volunteering and doing acts of service. I think it’s really fun to go out, and do little things to help people, with my friends. The one thing I find hardest is fitting events into my busy schedule. Between homework, volleyball, and events with my church it is hard to find time.” With all of Brant’s extracurriculars he still finds time to show up and volunteer because it means a lot to him.
The hardest part for Interact is finding members that want to join. Teige Bredin, Vice President, said, “A lot of people, I think, don’t really volunteer because it is seen as work without pay, but volunteering feels really good to do, which makes it worth it to me. Right now a lot of people are members because it looks good on resumes, so I think it would be nice to get more people joining out of the goodness of their hearts.”
People may think volunteering is boring, but it is quite the opposite with Interact. They are a big group of friends that accept everyone and love to help others. They stick to their motto, “Service Above Self” and they succeed at it!
